SUIT SAYS YOUTHS HELD ILLEGALLY

William B. Crawford JrCHICAGO TRIBUNE

THE AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union charged in a federal suit Monday that every week dozens of juveniles are unlawfully detained for up to a year in Cook County`s juvenile home because their parents or guardians do not pick them up after a judge orders their release.

The suit charged that as many as 40 youths a week, who are charged with minor crimes including window breaking and delinquency, are held in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center though a judge has ordered them released into their parents` custody.

''These kids are being illegally held for anywhere from a few days to more than a year,'' said Benjamin Wolf, an ACLU attorney who filed the suit.

''Some of these children have never been put in an institution before. The courts have said they shouldn`t be in one now, but they are,'' he said.

The class action suit charges that James M. Jordan, the juvenile home`s superintendent, violated the constitutional rights of the children by pursuing the practice and asks U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen to order an end to it. ''I`m not sure how we are to try and find the parents,'' said Vincent Mead, administrative assistant for the center. ''The center employees don`t have deputy powers and the courts have the subpoena powers. We hold them for the courts and they have the right to release them.'' He said the center, which can accommodate 435 juveniles, has about 260 juveniles, age 10 to 17.

Wolf`s suit cites several examples in which minors, identified only by initials, were jailed in the home for as long as two months because their parents or legal guardians did not get them after a Juvenile Court judge ordered the youths ''released upon request.''

ACCORDING TO the suit, the judge ordered the juvenile ''released upon request'' after a hearing in which the judge concluded that the juvenile`s crime was not serious enough to require detention.

The suit charges that, for example, a 14-year-old girl, who suffers from a learning disability, was charged in early November with delinquency but ordered released to her parents Nov. 7. Because her parents did not show up, the girl remains in the home and has been denied the special education she requires.

The suit cites another case in which a teenage boy, who is ''severely retarded,'' was detained for more than a year after a judge ordered his release.

The suit also asks Judge Aspen to order the state to set up a policy to handle the needs and care of these children and requests that they be allowed to sue the state for the unlawful detentions.